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EL PASO, Texas - Border control is a topic as hot as a desert summer. But it's nothing new.
The United States has been working to monitor and manage the nation's border crossings for more than a century, and a small museum in this city across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico, sheds light on those efforts.
The U.S. Border Patrol Museum, the nation's only facility chronicling and honoring the service, traces its work since Congress created the agency in 1924. Also included is information on even earlier efforts by lawmen to stem illegal migration and smuggling on the nation's 2,000-mile-long southern border and 6,000-mile northern boundary.
This is a museum for readers. Artifacts aside (and they are many, from pursuit cars to weapons to a helicopter you can sit in), much of what you can learn is found in articles, information boards and old ledgers. It's possible to spend a couple of hours cruising material on tracking, the K-9 unit and famous cases.
A large painting, "Persistence," shows two mounted agents tracking in canyonlands of the West. The patrol relied on horses through the mid-1930s and still may use them in rough country. But surveillance today also is computer-assisted and uses autos and aircraft.
"The Border Patrol is the first line of defense for citizens of this wonderful country," says curator Brenda Tisdale. "That's why they call it the thin green line," she adds, referring to the agency's green uniform.
Several exhibits show the ingenuity of people determined to enter the U.S. illegally. A boat seized at Laredo consists of two truck hoods welded together. The crude craft carried illegal immigrants two at a time across the Rio Grande. Cost of the cruise? An average $500 per person, and passengers had to row themselves.
Across the room are two astonishing contraptions: homemade motorcycles built by smugglers to carry illegal immigrants through the Arizona desert. The bikes are conglomerations of scraps: lumber seats, a plastic-jug gas tank, mismatched tires and grab bars of hollow tubing. Suspension or lights? None. But each has a muffler for quiet running.
A 14-minute video focuses on curbing illegal immigration on the nation's southern border, but it's out of date, and the nonprofit museum's tight budget hasn't funded a remake. The film predates 9/11 and the patrol's shift into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 from the Justice Department. It also doesn't address the nation's northern border. Still, it shows the patrol at work and is worth a visitor's time.
What is tragically up to date is the museum's photo gallery of slain agents. The memorial wall humanizes the nation's gatekeepers. The 97 faces span nearly 90 years of border watching, beginning with the stern features of Clarence M. Childress, who died April 16, 1919, and ending, for now, with the confident air of Nicholas D. Greenig, killed March 14.
A small but mighty gift shop is neatly packed with all the requisite T-shirts, plush toys, books and billed caps. It's made interesting by items such as small bronze statues ($50), art prints (from $15), agent belt buckles (from $28) and spurs (leather, $19; engraved metal, $70).
But even more than souvenirs, Tisdale hopes visitors will carry away a better understanding of the work of the Border Patrol and the inspectors who preceded it.
"Regardless of what period of history or historical events in the United States in the last 100 years, the Border Patrol has been a part of it," she says.
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IF YOU GO:
BORDER PATROL MUSEUM: U.S. Border Patrol Museum, 4315 Trans Mountain Road, El Paso. Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Free; donations accepted. For a guided tour, contact curator Brenda Tisdale. Ample free parking for large vehicles or RVs. Contact: 915-759-6060; www.borderpatrolmuseum.com.
NEXT DOOR: Steps from the Border Patrol Museum is the El Paso Museum of Archaeology, which describes the life of people of the Southwest and northern Mexico from 12,000 years ago to the present. See dioramas, exhibits and artifacts, plus a short nature trail. Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Free. Contact: 4301 Trans Mountain Road; 915-755- 4332; www.elpasotexas.gov/arch-museum/default.asp.
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(c) 2006, The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
